wireless with a live distro?

[kornphlake]

I'm getting a little comfortable with Ubuntu 8.04 and 10.04 and keep reading that Ubuntu isn't preferred for many advanced users. I don't really consider myself an advanced user, but thought I'd download a few other distros and see what they're all about. I don't have much desire to dual boot so I've been downloading live distros to run off a CD.

So far the only live distro I've been able to get working with my wireless adapter (broadcom 802.11g, can't remember the exact chipset) is ubuntu 10.04, Fedora, openSUSE and Debian needed proprietary drivers which require a reboot to install. Is there a way to reboot the OS without physically rebooting the computer and loosing the drivers installed in memory?

 

[lxskllr]

I'd use a VM. VirtualBox is in Ubuntu's repositories. You could also do a real install to a thumb drive, and dual boot that way. That would save the hassle of partitioning your hd.

 

[kornphlake]

I'd use a VM. VirtualBox is in Ubuntu's repositories. You could also do a real install to a thumb drive, and dual boot that way. That would save the hassle of partitioning your hd.

VM would work except I'm afraid the machine running ubuntu may not have enough memory to run another OS in a virtual machine. My main desktop and laptop both have enough memory but both run Windows 7, I'd have to find a virtual machine for windows, it really seems like about as much hassle as partitioning a hard drive.

I like the idea of a thumb drive though, I'll have to look and see if the bios on my laptop will let me boot from USB, I've been thinking I need a reason to buy a thumb drive larger than 128mb anyway.

 

[lxskllr]

VM would work except I'm afraid the machine running ubuntu may not have enough memory to run another OS in a virtual machine. My main desktop and laptop both have enough memory but both run Windows 7, I'd have to find a virtual machine for windows, it really seems like about as much hassle as partitioning a hard drive.

I like the idea of a thumb drive though, I'll have to look and see if the bios on my laptop will let me boot from USB, I've been thinking I need a reason to buy a thumb drive larger than 128mb anyway.

Virtual machines are simple, and ideal for testing purposes. It's super quick installing different O/Ss, and it doesn't affect your main O/S at all.

If your laptop has an SD card slot, that's a very elegant way of dualbooting O/Ss. On my netbook, I run Ubuntu as my primary O/S, and Backtrack on a SD card.

 

[thedarkwolf]

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
That makes it very easy to boot linux off a usb drive.

And try Mint Linux

 

[Jawadali]

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
That makes it very easy to boot linux off a usb drive.

And try Mint Linux

Thanks for the link.

An alternate would be the Universal USB installer from PenDriveLinux:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

I have used the UUI in the past with both Ubuntu and Lubuntu, and it was very easy to use. It looks very similar to UNetBootin (which I have not used), so hopefully either one will work.

PenDriveLinux also seems to have another tool, YUMI, which looks like you can boot multiple distros off of the same USB drive:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/

I have not used this tool, but it may be a bit more convenient to use for testing multiple distros, provided you have a large flash drive.

 

[thedarkwolf]

doh. Wasn't thinking right. Unetbootin is more for installing from an USB drive sorry, just makes the USB drive like a live CD 🙂.

 

[funkymatt]

fedora 15 found my network card without a problem, it was awesome.

 

[SickBeast]

I find using a newer kernel will usually fix any hardware incompatibilities that I have.

Google for "ubuntu mainline kernel", otherwise it gets complicated.

 

[ArisVer]

I like the idea of a thumb drive though, I'll have to look and see if the bios on my laptop will let me boot from USB, I've been thinking I need a reason to buy a thumb drive larger than 128mb anyway.

I use PLPBT , a linux floppy , from which you can boot to a hard disk, a partition , a cd/dvd or a usb. I think it was from sourceforge net. Works very well.
From the 'about' on the floppy i see this message:
Plop Boot Manager V5.0.11-2 20110112 HTTP://WWW.PLOP.AT

At first i used unetbootin in windows and linux to create the usb live. Now i use the Startup Disk Creator from Ubuntu 10.10 to create the usb. I think you can do that in 10.04 as well. Make sure you check the "Discarded on shutdown, etc" box. Otherwise it will not work.